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Non-Representative Governments.mp2
This page documents changes affecting the performance and strategies of non-representative governments in MP2. There are a large number of people contributing to MP2 and a community debate on the subject of rapture. Advanced consideration of this topic is relevant to MP2's quest to achieve superior balance and strategic diversity with respect to this topic. For this reason, a separate page has been appended to the end of this page, to summarize all the discussion and combined theory collected on the topic. To better understand what MP2 has done and why it has done it, it may be useful to read the appended History and Summary of the Rapture Debates. Non-Representative Rebalance in Multiplayer-Evolution Ruleset Many people are unaware that the original rules are more balanced than most other possibilities. Exploitation of militarism is purposefully designed to have a ''higher degree of difficulty and could already be successfully utilized with increased skill. It is certainly not a goal to "fix" the rules by undoing these enlightened design decisions. There are countless imbalances and exploits that don't exist which we happily take for granted, because the original rules balanced them out. Acting together, the following advantages for non-representative governments produce a lot more effect than many people might suppose. As always though, the wise and enlightened design decisions of the gurus are preserved: militarist governments continue to require mastering a higher degree of difficulty. '''Non-representative buffs in MP2: # Pyramid is cheaper, gives +25% grain storage in all cities, and rapture in its home city. # Granaries cost 35, not 40. Works in tandem with Pyramid. # Foodbox caps at 70. At size 7, the grain needed to grow to higher sizes does not increase. # Courthouses go from a rounded mean of 41% corruption reduction to 53% (mean after rounding down). # Courthouses cost 25% less. # Courthouse extra benefits: no tile corruption in anarchy/despotism, increased resistance to hostile diplomats, +1 free upkeep (+1 shield per city.) # Supreme Court gives an extra Courthouse in all cities, but now Courthouses deliver more value. # Celebration bonuses are easier to unlock in non-representative governments, due to: Courthouses, Supreme Court, Mausoleum, Trade Routes, etc. # Democracy costs 25% more bulbs. # Knights, Legions, and Archers get micro-bonuses, for micro-increase to the value of pre-Gunpowder units and pre-representative governments. # As always, Sea units usually cause unhappiness to representative governments (most of the sea is unclaimed territory.) There are more early sea units in MP2, and late sea units also have more viable balance. # Ecclesiastical Palace makes a second capital: cities suffer the corruption rate of whichever capital is closest. # Ability to capture foreign units '''by making raids into foreign territory (without unhappiness). # [[:en:Design_Log.mp2#.CE.B2._Diplomacy_Improved.|The drastic '''reduction of "Phony War"]] means that non-representative governments start enjoying more advantages by not being limited by a Senate. # "Migrant-like" units for advanced non-representative governments (Fundamentalism and Communism). These cheap units allow population acceleration and redistribution at a level not as good as, but more competitive with, rapture. This is fitting with the fact representative governments are supposed to grow somewhat faster as compensation for their other penalties. The Migrant-type unit was introduced to non-rapture rulesets to compensate for the discovery that linear population growth was unrealistic, unplayable, and created economic imbalance in tech costs and unit costs in late games that had unnaturally low populations. So in a way it was replacing the very thing it took away, without knowing the raison d'être for it in the first place; and eliminating the central economic mechanics and building mechanics. This tragic mistake is now turned into an interesting bonus for the MP2 ruleset, which now features Rapture vs. Migrant governments in the late game. # Foreign Nationals - Foreign citizens in conquered cities shift to the conqueror's nationality over time, but are at first unhappy if their nation is at war with the conquering nation. This re-balances some side effects of ReWonder 1.0, which nullified some of the advantages of non-representative governments. The advantage of having martial law to force order in conquered cities becomes an advantage for non-representative governments. # Fundamentalism and Communism '''get other significant re-balance in the distinctive spirit of those governments and the varietal style of play -- becoming a different "game within a game." MP2 is aware that just the opposite is the case of what most people think. While non-representative governments appear to be (and are) more "beginner friendly", they have properties that can be powerfully exploited by experts. Real care must be taken to preserve the "invisible balance." A non-representative government that grows slightly slower than representative governments is a ferocious OP tiger in the hands of an expert. History and Summary of Rapture Debates It has been argued by many that rapture was "OP" in the rulesets that featured it; therefore, it should be removed. Some deny this view outright, while others have argued for moderate solutions. So far, none of the three parties have successfully achieved traction with the others. What can be agreed is that it's an issue which hasn't gone away. At best, this has highlighted Freeciv's remarkable adaptability to accommodate different rulesets. At worst, it has created a schism in default rules and standardization. Anti-rapturists have dismissed the arguments of more skilled players, ''standardized the removal of rapture, and dichotomized the community into a factionalized split. Arguments made by anti-rapturists: These points are short, simple, and "to the point." * The ability to gain +1 population in all cities every turn, is an unsurpassable advantage. * Rapture therefore creates a mockery over the apparent choice in governments, and sabotages each government's role to provide an equal yet diverse strategic playing style. * Rapture creates a single "Golden Path" where the only optimal strategy is to race to Republic as fast as possible, get Democracy afterward, and stay in Democracy. * The ability to quickly get to rapture or to better master its mechanics, exaggerates the disparity between beginning and expert players. Arguments made by pro-rapturists: These points are numerous, longer. and complex. * The necessity of using a game element does not make it OP. Irrigation, roads, and gunpowder are a necessity, but aren't removed for being OP. It's fallacious to claim that Rapture is OP because winning strategies require it. One must dig deeper to find the true agenda: * The belief that all governments should be equal-yet-different appears to be a foundational reason that surfaces when we dig deeper. Yet this is a common beginner-level misunderstanding of the game's deliberate design. A foundational reason for arguing for the removal of rapture is based on beginner level fallacy! However, claims of "beginner misunderstanding" demand a thorough explanation: * Just as inferior units and technologies are intended to expire and be replaced, the game was deliberately designed the same way with respect to governments. Simple city growth mechanics are deliberately intended to have diminishing returns and be replaced with superior methods that must be earned and achieved. It was never intended for you to be able to compete for the whole game with the primitive growth model, any more than it was intended for you to be able to compete for the whole game with Archers. * The rapture requirement to have a Senate and have aggression penalties is a wise and deliberate game design element to balance the peace/aggression ratio and enable a wide variety of game elements to shine, such as: economics, diplomacy, infrastructural investments, managing a golden age population boom, and other aspects of developing a civilization. This is not just an argued point. It's the essence of the game itself. Without this, the game degrades into the lesser model of a "war game that features an economic production element." It becomes RTS played at the pace of "watching paint dry." * Government types were not meant to be equal-yet-different any more than Archers are meant to be equal-yet-different to Musketeers. Like everything else in the game, governments mirror the actual advancement of a civilization to superior types which allow it to achieve better results. Each higher type has higher costs and stricter challenges which diminish the payoff for racing to it early. * Variety and diversity in play-style come from when to select certain governments and how strongly to prioritize them. It does NOT come from governments being equal-yet-different. The different Ages and stages of the game are all balanced on the assumption that players progress through these stages together. * Anti-rapturists are under the mistaken impression that running a Monarchy with free upkeep, no Senate, and no restrictions on warmongering--that this should be an easy thing any noob should be able to do to successfully compete with experienced players running Republics. If this were the case, every mid- and expert- level player in the game would be a warmongering monarchist, and game balance would be shredded. There seems to be a failure to understand the wisdom in the game's architectural balance: it's intelligently designed to have a'' ''much higher degree of difficulty to exploit non-representative militarism. "Noob Militarist Monarch holding his own against Expert Republic" is completely' upside-down. It was designed so that a Noob Republic can partake in a simplistic equalizing via rapture and survive by using the bias of early-game defense bonuses and diplomatic outreach. Non-representative militarist play was properly, intelligently, and intentionally designed by gurus to have a higher degree of difficulty. ''To temper this, each "Age" has certain techs which allow brief yet time-limited periods of militarist expansion. '' * It is a common fallacy to claim that "race to Republic" is a golden path. The farther one goes up the ladder of experts, the more one sees an increase in players doing Monarchy first, delayed Republic-first, and even Monarchy-to-Democracy (without Republic.) Among the top experts, there are a huge variety of strategies in early governments and tech priorities. Governments are not "better" or "worse" without first considering a "how" and a "when." * The size-3 requirement for rapture, the Construction/Aqueduct requirement for size-9, and the Sanitation/Sewer requirement for size-13 make natural limits to the benefits of rapture racing. Decisions to gain immediate advantages from race-to-rapture are balanced by three "delay-hurdles" which allow other nations to catch up. This allows alternative paths that explore a variety of other strategic advantages. In the majority of massive multiplayer games, the nation with the highest population cities at first, is usually '''''not the player with the most high population cities in the end game. This is prima facie proof that the Race-to-Rapture-is-Golden-Path ''hypothesis is an ignorant myth. * The '''second foundational reason given by anti-rapturists is: "Rapture creates more disparity between noobs and experts." This is also a misunderstanding: * "Race to Republic" and the mechanic it provides actually '''''benefits noobs -- it is a less complicated'' formula for noobs to learn. '''Rapture is an equalizer. '''It allows less experienced players with '''more of a chance to stay competitive with experts. (After some basic experience, anyone with Republic and size 3 cities can rapture every turn.) Experts who wish to gain advantage must do so from other strategies and game mechanics. Meanwhile, experts can and '''''do deviate from "Race to Republic" quite often. "Race to Republic is the only path" is a myth that was destined to take root in noob culture: people are willing to give simplified noob advice, but less willing to share other secrets. "Race to Republic" is excellent advice for a noob to follow and learn from, and even continue to use as an expert. But far from being the only path, it is more of the answer to the question: "What's the simplest way to compete in a game with expert players?" * If the goal is to "raise the floor" so beginners can better equalize, while also keeping the "infinite ceiling" of the "game of a lifetime," rapture is a necessity. If that's not the goal, then it should be. * It takes a level of mastery to see that the purpose, mechanics, and cost-valuations of almost all buildings and Wonders, were created under the assumption that rapture exists, and: * The simulation of a national leader who manages economic policies, issues, growth, etc., is wrapped inside the tripartite trade & taxes system. Not acknowledging this leads to "leaderectomy" and loss of half the game: the element of being a national leader who walks a tightrope to optimize taxes, science, and growth. Removing rapture is not "removing an OP mechanic," or "making the game beginner friendly." It eliminates an entire dimension of the game. An entire game-within-a-game gets reduced to a mindless formula: "use enough luxury to stay out of disorder; and with what's left, pick whether you want more gold or bulbs." * The peace bonus, balance of the peace/war ratio with the timing of the Ages and military technologies, are also very finely balanced under the assumption that rapture exists. * A Golden Age population boom during a peaceful phase of growth is not an "OP flaw"; but rather, a distinct element in any successful civilization's rise to power. * The representative government requirement for Rapture was a deliberate design decision to lessen the disruptive effects of the arrival of high-tech units. It creates brilliant balance in strategic consequences between pursuing militarism, economics, and the timing and management of both. * The scale of the game, costs of units, costs of buildings, costs of Wonders, and so on, presuppose a realistic population explosion like in real history. Civilization without rapture keeps populations artificially and unrealistically low. The units and buildings in question become difficult to produce and accumulate in any way that realistically resembles the infrastructure of modern nations. Army size and composition can't feature enough of the diversity and quantity in unit types to tap into their tactical properties correctly. * In the hands of a skilled player, the features of non-representative governments can provide a player with more new cities at a rapid pace that may surpass that of rapture. Anti-rapturists seem completely blind to the fact that rapture is a balance mechanism against this, providing a "peace bonus" which emulates the real history of civilizations, and prevents Golden Path strategies of ADHD unchecked militarism. It brilliantly solves a problem in other games of this type, where whoever is lucky enough to have unskilled neighbours would win the game by default, based on luck of geographic placement alone. The fact that people unaware of these finer holistic balances made by gurus, would take it on themselves to degrade the rules while thinking they improve them, is an act of arrogance exemplifying the Dunning-Kruger effect. Arguments made by moderates and "middleground solutionists": * Both sides are right. * Anti-rapturists have little to say but oversimplified statements built on fallacious assumptions, and actively stonewall discussion and holistic analysis. Pro-rapturists have depth behind what they say, but: * Pro-rapturists are typically so engaged in "resisting the falsehood" of anti-rap arguments, that this camp is in denial over solving very valid issues which created the issue, and which even non-experts can see: * Rapture is OP in its intensity and degree. It exaggerates the advantages of representative governments. * The default "Fibonacci-ish* Foodbox" is 'underpowered relative to Rapture. ''*(Xi = Xi-1 + y is "Fibonacci-ish"--it experiences a "runaway" increase by always adding more to the previous value's state.) * The majority of players would like to see something in between the two government models of '''1-Government is a superior tech like anything else, you simply achieve the better one and use it for better results, and 2'''-Different governments really do open up a variety of government play-styles. Pro-raps are not acknowledging that this is not only popular but could create more realism and playability. * There are interesting proposals that pro-raps have ignored, such as: Foodbox growth should be equal to rapture growth at first then SLOWLY fall off in performance, rather than be instantly and decisively inferior. * Pro-raps are correct about some things: anti-rapturists implemented a simplistic heavy-handed overcorrection that unknowingly disrupted the balance and richness of a large number of other game elements. * The anti-raps typically do not understand pro-rap arguments and seem to fall back on the lazy convenient assumption that it is a conspiracy to preserve some kind of "unfair advantage." * Unintentionally, anti-raps limit their future arrival at higher levels in the "game of a lifetime" -- levels where whole new strategic worlds never stop opening. They are unaware that their overcorrections decapitate this. * A gentle lifting of the "floor" for non-rapture performance is beneficial to the exact degree it can be accomplished without adversely skewing peace/war ratios and other relations that are in delicate balance. * If Rapture is to remain a part of the game that the majority of players still want to play, then pro-raps should be working on solutions to decrease its exaggerated dominance, otherwise the "noob fallacies" will become "accepted wisdom" and we'll all be stuck playing with "dumbed-down" rules. * Any "game of a lifetime" has an "infinite ceiling" to its mastery. While this is good, it has a downside. Lower levels of skill can be so dominantly trounced by transcendent experts, that they will lose motivation to play. A mechanism or culture needs to be put in place similar to other high ceiling games that solved this problem: ** ELO Rating systems that objectively score performance. ** A culture and orthodox system for "handicaps" -- "standard penalties" that people with certain ratings may agree to, when playing with much lower rated players. This is far superior to dumbing down the truly rare and precious pearl of a "game of a lifetime." '''Failure of Middleground solutions so far: * Removing rapture and altering Foodbox to be Rapture-ish. This solution unfortunately ignores three central architectural elements of game design: a strong encouragement toward representative government at a certain stage to balance the peace/war coefficient; an "invisible hand" that indirectly smooths out luck/equality of competitive opportunity; the fact that the game engine and most all its improvements, wonders, costs and valuations are built on the foundations of tripartite trade and rapture. Removing the foundational component that "ancient food growth" should eventually be replaced with a superior but more costly and difficult mechanism makes for a shallow game. However, the main failing of this solution is that it comes from the simplistic "rapture is OP therefore remove it" mindset. This mindset does not appreciate or grasp the holistic role rapture plays in game design, game balance, and so many countless game elements of the overall architecture of the "game of a lifetime." * Reducing the Foodbox. So far, this has disrupted the near perfect balance of the original settings for making Republic-first and Monarchy-first equally viable options, disrupting a nearly maximized strategic diversity that lasts up until around Turn 70. It hyper-accelerates the "slow" but very vital strategic phases in the Bronze and Iron Ages, and reduces the fun of these historic ages. * Rapturedelay=2 overcorrects and produces greater imbalance than rd=1. There is an obvious issue for massive multiplayer games which allow late-join, and reduction in community size if disabling late-join. But this consideration does not apply to all cases. The larger problem is that a wide menu of strategic paths and timing gets replaced by a single Golden Path that is always superior in every case. A secondary issue is nearly as bad: rd=2 magnifies luck imbalance--whichever nation is not exposed to early wars gets a much larger advantage than under rd=1. Ironically, doubling the length of time required to rapture makes the "Race to Rapture myth" start to become more a reality. Slowing rapture makes it go from something you can choose to delay and perform between 40% to 90% of the time, to something that must be done near continuously. A wide variety of tech strategies get replaced by Construction and Sanitation becoming Golden Paths. Once you get into rapture, you can't afford to stop. Gone is all the rich infinite strategy of timing bursts of rapture followed by periods of pursuing other economic or military goals. Gone is the possibility of contextually using other governments. Counterintuitively, rd=2 makes rapture a more precious commodity with more than double the value it had before. Now the only golden path for everyone ''is "rapture always"-- whoever starts first will never be caught. However, the above issues are only secondary. When a wide menu of strategic paths is replaced by a single Golden Path, it's unfortunately a failure. Formerly, it was a fallacious myth to say that it's bad to try Monarchy for long periods before going to Republic. Under rd=2, that goes from myth to reality. But it's worse. Those who "suicidally" choose Monarchy will enjoy ''stronger competitiveness against Republics for a while before facing the forfeit-karma of their actions much later. This opens up "suicide sacrifice" tactics in allied or team games which are generally frowned upon. It also exaggerates the luck for players who make it to rapture without any early wars. It creates a horrible precedent seen in other RTS strategy games that Freeciv wants to avoid at all costs: suicide-players who sacrifice their nation for their team by exploiting game-losing mechanics to degrade players on the other team. All this comes about from such innocent good intentions of decreasing the "OP" of rapture. Seeing how well-intended adjustments made things worse should awaken people to both the complexity of the task and the heights of balancing that were already achieved and are now taken for granted. The possibly good side effect that can be said about rd=2 is that the need to race to rapture and then rapture constantly, increases the peace/war coefficient during the early mid-game. However: (1') There is no consensus that would be good: many want to encourage "more early warfare without it being suicidal." ('2) It's quite possible this could result in p/w going to an overcorrected ~0.7 or higher. In conclusion, the rd=2 solution is a failure with a good intention. Decreasing the dominance of the rapture mechanic to open up MORE strategic diversity is a good goal, but we already know it's not going to be easy. Follow up: rd=2 could work in a rewritten ruleset with much other re-balance. * Significantly increasing other penalties on rapture governments: this decreases the sovereign autonomy of nations, unnaturally forcing nations into more "division of labour" and specialized roles. For example, "I'll do science but you must protect me". This decreases autonomy and independence. Autonomy of nations is an element that most people prefer to see increased rather than reduced. Solutions that MP2 and other rulesets have not yet tried: Any solution must be respectful that the game is nearly perfectly balanced up until circa Turn 65-75; they should be aware of why the previous tries failed, and attempt a much more subtle balancing, probably a combination of some of the following, but working together in microscopically subtler ways. '' * Ever so slightly less Fibonacci-ish foodbox between the sizes of 3 and 8±2. * More ability to lessen the foodbox and/or increase food surplus with carefully balanced costs/efforts/delays that decrease military expenditures or introduce other non-militarist penalties. * Very slight increase in penalties or less participation in bonuses for representative governments. * Ability for non-representative governments to become pseudo-representative or "representative-ish", taking on lesser penalties and lesser bonuses of representative governments to more closely approximate the behavior of representative governments (e.g., Magna Carta, Constitutional Monarchy, Parliament/Senate, etc.) * Increasing size needed to start Rapture. * Better facilitating the Celebration bonuses of non-rapture governments (which are too hard to achieve with -1 trade per tile) and/or adjusting trade bonuses for governments in other ways. The +50% median gain in trade per tile for representative governments is too steep; mechanisms to reduce this discrepancy an optimal balance point (e.g., through improvements, religious/ethical achievements, etc.) A warning about standardizing anti-rapture rules The original rules were designed to have many levels and layers of skill-levels, with ever new heights and breakthroughs in thinking and possibilities. In a strategic game that follows a meritocratic model, dogmatizing the opinions of median level players is a formula that guarantees sub-mediocrity. The holistic classical architecture of one of the most successful game designs of all time has been edited by lone individuals with good intentions but lack of respect for the high degree of transcendence needed to surpass the insights of experts. ''The game design's high complexity and unprecedented success deserve far more respect than assuming that lone individuals and committees can make easy improvements on one of the most successful designs of all time. (Indeed, lone designs and committee designs are notorious for inferior results.) What succeeds are goal-based semi-pyramidical team structures. There should be red flags, flashing beacons, and 100 sirens going off, when anyone proposes to take a golden epic game of the ages and allow a committee or loner of any ''level of skill to do macroscopic modifications. No matter what his skill level, ''a lone individual can simply never transcend his own biases, strengths, weaknesses, prejudices, and play-style. A better methodology is to use a design manifesto that top experts agree to "buy into" before a single rule change is made, then create a pyramidical team with experts at the top and a base under it, getting input and opinions from all levels from expert to beginner. (Beginners are often intelligent people with an unbiased fresh look on things. Their suggestions may be wildly off but have valuable nuggets of gold.) Inputs get hierarchically modified as they work their way up, to where final decisions come from the top and disputes are settled by play-test evaluation of their raw performance in meeting the agreed goals. * The new proposed anti-rapture default rules self-admittedly minimize the depth and impact of different strategic decisions. They promote decisions that game theory states will reduce strategic ceiling and game complexity. This creates less disparity in performance and thus a beginner-friendly set of rules, but it unfortunately deviates from the award-winning formula that had unprecedented historical success: "challenging to learn and a lifetime to master." It is risky to take one of the most successful formulas of all time and replace it with "easy to be decent, challenging to master, limited gains after mastery." The new formula departs from one that made a game survive for over 20 years. It adopts a formula that competes with thousands of modern games that offer more compelling graphics, animations, and sound effects. * It's unlikely that every adjustment in the anti-rapture rules is bad. Most ideas for change originate in observations that are at least partly true. Pro-raps should consider careful adaptation and integration of good elements from Civ3, Civ4, etc., in order to make state-of-the-art rulesets in the classical rapture-based branch.